"Here," Addie said, extending the flask. "This is the sun's sweat. Delicious."

The girl looked at her with paranoid eyes. "Belraed doesn't sweat."

"Of course he does. He lives in such heat."

"Why would anyone want to - to drink sweat?"

Addie smiled her cheap, charming smile. "You got me. It's apple ale. And it will make you feel better. You are thirsty, are you not?"

The girl nodded, tear patches prominent on her damp cheek.

"Well then." Addie handed over the dirty swig to the six, maybe seven summers old child, who eagerly grabbed it and took a sip. She pulled a face, drained another big gulp, then returned it.

"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" Addie beamed, stashing the flask into one of the many pockets of her cloak. It was a strange cloak, brown and muggy, offering more storage than cover.

No one dared hoist the Dassan flag, which on another occasion they would do with little encouragement. Haste and quiet were of the essence. To their either side stretched impending rays of green-brown stringbark trees, coruscating with dried yellow sap.

But for now, all Addie could see was the girl's face. It was ruddy and puffed from crying, but the tears were unwilling to stop. They made Addie think of the creeks in Nerba, which had professedly been running since the First Quenching.

"What's your name, pretty gal?"

The child wiped an actively rolling tear, fiddling with her braided pale hair. "Aeri," she said.

"Gracious, what a lovely name!" Addie exclaimed. "After the Unburnt Goddess, Aerilys, is that right?"

A meek nod.

"I envy you, Aeri. My mother gave me such a doltish name. Adeline. That's my name. Can you believe it?"

The hint of a smile brushed Aeri's eyes.

"May I ask why you are crying?"

Now, even a young sod knows to not trust a ragged, grimed stranger. They could ravage you, slaughter you, sell you as a courtesan. But when no one will stop for you - and then someone abruptly does, you are obliged to respond.

Aeri nodded a genteel nod, and it was here that trust started to steer her.

"Thank you, Aeri. So, why were you crying?"

"Ma," she whispered, just loud enough for Addie to hear, amongst the shuffling of scurrying steps. A few paces south, a battle was in its tidings, the clash of swords and breaking of bones distantly audible. "I can't . . . can't find her."

"Where's your father?"

"He's fighting."

"He must be very brave then."

Another tear welled up behind Aeri's large eyes, like clay in kiln, eyes that spoke of how guileless they were. Addie held her arm. The girl didn't flinch at the rough-hewn touch. In fact, she seemed somewhat comforted.

"You know what, Aeri," Addie said. "Once we reach Fehnia, I'm going to help you find your mother. How about that? I promise by the stars."

Aeri gave her a timid nod for a reply.

"But," Addie added, "you're going to have to do one thing for me. You are not going to cry, Aeri. Can you do that?"

Another teeny nod.

"Attagirl," Addie said. Then she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.

Master Harl, owner of that hand, stood old and strong before her. He looked like an inscrutable banyan tree which ghosts parleyed in. "I'll keep moving, then. Don't stall." His white walrus mustache bounced with each syllable. "And don't attract too much attention to yourself."

"Do I ever?"

Master Harl shook his head, a faint pride apparent in the twitch of his muscles. "Holder help you, shren."

And then he was on his way, wafting his quarterstaff to clear his path for movement. He blended right in. Much of the crowd gave way to the elderly half-blind man.

No clue of what was concealed beneath that shawl and in the pockets of his dungaree.

"What does shren mean?" Aeri asked.

"It's shren."

"Shren."

"No. Shren."

"Sh - shren."

"That is more like it." Addie looked at the demure girl, studying her curiosity. "It means pupil. Student. Learner."

"The old man is your teacher?"

"Yes," answered Addie, "and no. He is that and much more. He is my master."

Confused, Aeri pursed her lips. She reminded Addie of a particular flightless bird ostensibly found in the north - a certain 'penguin,' unless she was mistaken. Addie had never seen one for herself. She would very much like to.

Couple years more, Addie's swordhand mageic nail spoke, and the boys will be baking her cakes wringed from roses.

She herself had never had a fierce fondness for roses. Why did it always have to be roses?

Then again, she had scarce received any.

If she lives, that is, spoke her other mageic nail. Addie looked back at Aeri. Otherwise, the only flower she'll beget will be the jasmine which garnishes her mass pyre.

Some seven hundred beats later - Addie had grown apt at keeping track of her heartbeats, under all kinds of situations, it helped keep her brain from growing redundant - they started moving with the rest of the Dassan evacuees. Addie found it laborious to carry her trunk, and even more laborious to carry the weight of her worry that its contents be discovered. Further, after about a thousand beats of tedious walking, she calmly acknowledged Aeri.

"You must be tired."

"Are you going to leave me like ma?" Aeri said in an incongruous response.

Addie bent to her knee and embraced the poor girl compactly. Her bosoms touched Aeri's brittle collarbone, fluff against stone. "No, of course not. Your ma didn't abandon you, Aeri. Why would she abandon the fierce Unburnt Goddess, now? And I'm not going to, either."

"Ma said - she said I shouldn't trouble the priests. I throw stones at them sometimes."

"That's in fine fettle, Aeri. There is nothing to worry about. We will find her in no time once we reach Fehnia. Or maybe she'll find us. Right?"

Addie noticed how bushed the girl looked. She had been walking like a sloth's second cousin, too.

"You want me to carry you?" Addie proposed.

Aeri nervously played with her braids.

Suddenly a leg rammed into her, and Aeri was hurtled to the ground, squealing. Addie rushed to help her. The poor creature was whimpering; she had hit her head solidly on the earth. Dainty blood oozed out at a compliant rate, but it nevertheless looked like it hurt.

Not caring to identify who the leg belonged to, Addie yelled at the ignorant passer-by: "Watch where you bray, thank you!"

Alas, it so happened that the leg was the property of one of the very men Master Harl had warned her not to fraternize with. The gent wore a corselet over chainmail, the locks imperceptible in the dark of the night, and knee-breeches Addie could not hope to afford in a lifetime. Surprisingly, the soldier wore no gauntlets. Instead his hands were covered in black gloves, both the one holding his helm - Dassan's Grail emblem carved on its dented surface - and the one scratching his neatly trimmed beard. His swarthy face looked masticated, adorned with a hawk nose and a cleft lip.

Addie descried the unintended mistake she had made, but she did not experience the regret Master Harl would have expected her to weather. She shifted focus back to Aeri, helped her back to her feet. The girl's doe eyes leaked like a faulty and spiritless fountain, though her mouth was quiet and she was acting like it didn't pain, like the blood emanating out of her forehead was a lie. Probable that she assumed this helpful stranger would desert her if she became too much of a liability.

But Addie simply smiled, brought out her duffel, and rummaged through vials and bottles and Bohlorise vessels to find the right antidote.

Meanwhile, the swarthy-looking guard in chainmail retraced his steps.

"Pardon?" he growled. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," Addie said without looking up.

"No, no. Tell me, madam. I am curious."

"Please be careful how you tread. You hurt my sister."

Why the needless lie, Adeline? her right mageic nail rebuked. Sometimes I think she wants to get caught.

Sometimes, spoke the other, I think you talk sense.

"Did I now?" The swarthy guard crouched low. "I'm terribly sorry," he said to Aeri, in a tone Addie very much despised. It wasn't cynicism; it was downright jest.

Aeri's tearful eyes met Adeline's, as if to plead to her: Make this man go away.

"I am sorry, m'lady, I didn' see you there. Would you have me slit mine wrist?"

The soldier produced a dagger - seven inches, Ylar markings by the hilt which Addie recognized immediately - and held it over his other palm, unseemly close to the skin. Aeri stepped back. Poor girl was clearly traumatized. The man could see it, he was relishing it.

Addie wished the man gone more than she wanted to join the Gilded Fingers at the moment. She dug a dry Sasmin leaf out of her duffel and brought it up to Aeri's face, shunning the man as much as possible.

"Come on, Aeri, look here."

The guard grasped her hand which held the leaf. "Now, now, elder sister. We do not want to leave apologies unattended, do we?" To Aeri: "You look Sauvendi, m'lady. I have heard they are good with blades."

He offered her the dagger. When she didn't take it, he grabbed her hand and made her hold it at his wrist. "Do it," the swarthy guard insisted.

"Do it, m'lady, exert your vengeance. Free me of mine sins."

"Can't you see she's scared?" Addie couldn't hold back anymore, couldn't hold the contempt in her voice. The poor girl was lost and injured, she didn't need further mutilation.

"Oh, is she? Aa' you?" The guard shifted stares back and forth between Addie and Aeri, finally setting on the former. "I didn' notice. I believe more apologies are in order."

Addie crunched the dried Sasmin in her hand. "We need to get going."

The soldier stepped in front of her. He was taller by half a hand, and a wolf behind his lids was snarling. "I know the likes of you, madam. I know the likes of you very well. Think your pretty face will get you through any cranny?" Here the soldier leaned over, breathing dismay into her mouth. "Well, I suppose . . . once we arrive, you could show me an adequate - "

"Oye! Pedgram! You coming or not?"

Addie saw another guard, immaculate identically with the swarthy-looking one. He was waving at the latter a black-gloved hand to tell him to hasten up.

The swarthy guard - Pedgram - perked up. "Comin'!" he howled. "Wrenched pooch, that Fugaak."

He gave Addie a devious wink as he jogged away to the other guard, helm held at the hip.

He definitively knows. By the Hand and the Holy Shadneer, he knows.

Addie offered her arm to Aeri, who was ogling in a kind of stupor at the receding figure of Pedgram. "Come on, you're hurt," Addie said. "Get on my back, quick."

She was reluctant at first, but eventually Aeri agreed. Her arms wrapped around Addie's muscular neck, a lass - no, a lady, for a lady is as a lady does - some ten summers older than herself. Addie was perspiring profusely, and this wouldn't help. But assisting Aeri imparted her a mellowness she could not quite explicate. It was similar to being in a plush, feathery mattress, covers over your nude body, the sun applying a lotion of its warmth on your laid-back spine.

"Do me a favor," she told Aeri. "Keep your eyes open. You see your mother, you tell me immediately. Understand?"

After a few good paces, they stopped for rest, then quickly resumed. Master Harl would drag Addie to the gates to Inira by her ear before she ever accomplished what she sought, should her possessions be confiscated and her cover be blown due to a girl she had never before met in her life.

It was growing dark. In the woods around them, a shroud of cold, leaden night had already been dropped like the charm of a clutch. Roteb, the scarlet moon, began its watch.

There was a silence hanging sinisterly in the air, like an unseen spider-web. There are a variety of silences in the world, some that soothe you, some that forebode. This particular one was the horrifying kind, the kind that would rip your skin open only to reach its under.

Dragoses zipped about in spasms of flight. They would be levitating stationary one beat, then the next with a jounce revolving still on a higher rung. As though leaping from molecule to molecule of air itself. Unlike many, Addie did not abhor the tiny fliers. They were essentially mosquitoes, only larger, but more primitive than bees. That they could not bite humans didn't hurt, either. And their trilling was oddly satisfying to hear, a ring of familiarity in this dire situation. Some would beg to differ, but not her.

Addie felt a tug on her neck. "Aeri? You're choking me."

The girl did not respond. Her eyes came a cropper amidst the dense foliage of green-brown trees to their left.

"Aeri, are you all right? Did you see your ma?"

No. She had seen something else.

Addie felt the girl's head squeeze against the nape of her neck, petite hands shaking and trussing around her clavicle.

Addie kept her trunk down and lifted Aeri off of her as softly as she could. The girl was quaking. Her dark eyes, on the trees still, were frightened and inquisitive.

"What is it?"

Aeri raised a finger slowly and pointed it at the woods. "There . . ."

Addie followed her line of sight, to see nothing but darkness. "What did you see, Aeri?"

"I don't know." She wrapped her arms around Addie, jittery with fear.

"I'll go take a look. Stay right here."

Addie moved on weary legs, descending down the natural steps into the woods. Red moonlight asserted its glint on the pebbles which, conjoined, formed these steps. There was a noticeable drop in temperature as Addie crossed over to the desiccated trees - more noticeable to her than to many, and her beats started to quicken.

Keep count.

She looked up, to the top of the proud stringbark and its fanning leaves.

It was easier to extract gum from a stringbark than dragoses for more reasons than one. You could cultivate stringbark, whereas you had to catch the flies, dead or alive. You could extract an eighth of a factory's worth of gum from a single healthy stringbark, whereas a hundred dragoses had to be collected to obtain the same yield. It was known that plants were dead entities, which had once walked besides men before the Second Quenching, but dragoses were still very much alive - a plague of them had invaded the Heim after the First Great Disaster, and bred, and stayed.

Addie looked around, asking questions with her eyes.

The woods whispered uncanny silence in response.

"It was nothing," she comforted Aeri after climbing the pebble steps back up. "Probably just a songbird. Here, have some ale. You liked it, right?"

She saw something, no doubt, Addie's mageic nails spoke. That fear cannot be conjured from nil.

Addie had some ale as well - the temperature drip had affected her more than she had anticipated - and soon they were on their way again, Aeri hoisted on her back. Fehnia was still a long way off. The guards had their horses, fortunate them. Some even rode orrocks. Majestic beasts, orrocks were. Made for better rides than horses and better companions than dogs. Addie had never owned one. Not that she wouldn't like to.

She tried to be miscible, as Master Harl had advised. Head bowed, acting miserable like all else. She was sad, so to speak; Dassan had been as much of a home for her as anyone else. She had lived there four seasons now, which for her was a sizeable amount of time, first seeking then training with Master Harl. In covert, of course. These days, if you showed anyone from the south that you possessed certain quirks, they would not hesitate for a split beat to have you locked up in a cell. That was, if they didn't kill you first.

Addie had always found this aberrant and unfair. Even as a child, when she hadn't known she had her gifts. No one knew how their breed started. No one knew how the Rys Ami came to be. They just . . . did, like a lot of other entities footing the Great Disaster, be it argonz metal ores or dragoses or even orrocks. They just became a piece of the ensemble in the grand scheme of things -

Someone crashed into her - rather, she crashed into the someone - bringing her back to the here and now.

"Master," Addie said in surprise. "You look anxious."

"Indeed I am." His old, knowing face was laced with crinkles and worry and . . . was it fear she saw? No. It couldn't be. Master Harl never let show his fear, never. "Why is that girl still with you?"

"She's hurt."

"Ah, well. Come on. I need to show you something."

Addie followed Master Harl to the side of the road, by a clump of trees. One wouldn't believe the old man was nearly sightless by birth. There, Addie dismounted Aeri off her back, which sighed in relief, putting down her trunk as well. The girl kept her eyes fixed on the witchwood and stringbark, cowering behind Addie's leg in fear.

People hauled themselves along like woodsmen dragging their axes, not sparing a glance to their stationary lot. Placated mages helped the carriage romp along like cattle, their faces each a distinctive picture of misery.

Once certain that no one was looking, Master Harl produced his pava from deep within his dungaree: a ruby the size of his palm, gleaming a green as true as fresh Kanchan grass. But even as Addie saw it, the glow multiplied in intensity. Her eyes widened in dawning realization.

"But -"

"They're here," Master Harl said gravely, his mustache quivering. "Or, at least, somebody is."

Addie could not tear her eyes away from the ruby. To her it seemed to emanate a strange buzz.

She herself didn't have a Relic yet. Pavagwe had to be earned, and she did not have a real achievement under her name yet that she could be proud of. She hoped to, after she joined the guild of the Gilded Fingers.

If they reached Fehnia alive.

"It hasn't done that in years," Master Harl told her, concealing the ruby, sweat beading on his brow. "I fear the worst. If the Ptirrens are here, even a few of them . . ."

A crunch of twig came from the woods besides them. Aeri jumped.

"They can't be," Addie reasoned. "This route to Fehnia originates from behind the city wall of Dassan. They would need to have defeated the Aryans beforehand."

"My worry precisely. You of all people should know of the growing might of Ptiree. I wouldn't put it past them to have already thwarted Dassan. And if not the Ptirrens themselves, it could be . . . their pawns. I have seen things, shren. My Relic is never mistaken."

"In that case -"

"Leave the girl. She can walk on her own, everybody's headed the same way."

"Master -"

"The guards are here, shren. The girl will be fine."

After her encounter with the swarthy-faced soldier from earlier, Addie wouldn't be too sure of that.

"We have to move fast. If we are in the presence of these people - and, Holder forbid - the guards, and we have to use our . . ." Master Harl's voice trailed off suggestively. Then cautiously, in a lowered tone: "We'll be in a dire strait. The Jen will never accept you into their guild."

Addie looked at Aeri, clutching her loosely hanging robes, eyes still on the woods. "I can't leave her be. I made a promise."

"This is no time for wearing your badge of honor, shren! You don't want for your efforts to be unmade. If you want to achieve what you desire, you need to survive. And outside of prison, at that!"

Are you going to leave me like ma? she'd said. Addie wasn't even sure if the poor girl's mother was alive. She had lost her own mother to Brackwhisp disease, many years back. It still stung sometimes.

She confronted Master Harl's eyes. "I am sorry to Cupar and back, Master. The girl stays."

The half-blind man sighed, stabbing the mud with his quarterstaff. "Think thrice, shren."

Addie closed her eyes and did exactly that.

She thought of the oath she had took to herself as a child, of the ambition that swam in her blood. She thought of her training with Master Harl a chime before the evacuation had begun, in the deserted Sire Block. Heaving boulders and balancing them on top of a bed of stones, before the cavalry had forced them, and others, behind the city wall of the Dassan fortress. She thought of the smell of armpits and farts as she let herself be pushed from all sides, feeling like they were several herds of sheep come together under one cruel shepherd. She thought of the Ptirrens (and hence of the Rys Ami), their victory over Walbrol, over the Sauvendi, over Queris. She thought of the ruby glowing green.

She thought of Aeri, and she thought of her own Casteless mother, whose face she could hardly remember, and she inhaled deeply.

Flesh ran in belts over her bones. The hair on her arms and legs stood out. Her fingers curled into hooks on their own accord.

As Addie exhaled, she began to distinguish the layer of dirt she had put on her skin to meld. She could feel the squall rustle of bushes to her side. She could tell the air was saturated with tears. She could hear impetuous footsteps and murmurs, and dull breathing, and hearts beating, and the slap of flesh against flesh.

Her eyes shot open. Her own suspiring caught in her chest.

Master Harl opened his mouth to say something, but Addie stormed off to the woods on their farther side. Her cloak jingled with each firm and heavy step.

She crossed the pebble stairs, Roteb asserting his bloody glint on them more and more importantly as the night wore on. She vaulted past trees and what looked to be a dead squirrel, to come upon two soldiers naked below the waist - one thrusting into a woman's behind while keeping a hand over her mouth, the other cupping the woman's cleavage which had been unlaced out of her papery dress.

Addie did not wend or prowl. She walked straight and plumb to the site of the ravaging, sited a hand on the second soldier's helmed head, and rammed it at a stringbark casting its shadow over the affair. He shoved her as he staggered, but Addie stood rooted like the trees witnessing this affray. His protected skull made sharp contact with the unyielding bark, and he fell, yowling.

The other was prepared by then, dagger in a black-gloved hand. Smirking - her smile neither cheap nor charming under the circumstance - Addie cracked her hands out over the woman's shoulder, grabbed the man's arm, and twisted it till she heard a satiating crunch. The dagger left his hold.

This man, too, crumpled yowling on top of his breeches.

"Are you hurt?"

The woman gaped at Addie like she were a goddess come to flesh. Her pale hair was a mess. "No. Thank you. Thank you forever."

Addie waited as the woman went a few yards away to right her dress and put her breasts where they could stay shielded from unwarranted eyes.

Naturally, Addie took this as an opportunity. She could feel the fallen guards' eyes on her. Humming, she retrieved an argonz coin from somewhere inside her cloak.

It ought to do nicely.

She emptied her mind as one empties a smokehouse of fumes and tossed the coin into the air. It caught the moonlight's scowl and winked. The guards' eyes followed it as it ascended, waiting for it to plunge . . . but it never did.

The coin stayed afloat, bobbing slightly like a drugged kingfisher. Addie smiled.

After a breach of terrific silence, the guard who fell first seized on to a stammering chain of words. The best he could manage was: "You - you a-are . . . you're a Jen!"

Addie sighed. "No, you ass. Not every Skiller has to be a Jen. Just like every man who spends time in his mother's womb doesn't have to have a full set of wits."

With a flex of her brain she made the coin hover down to her fingers, which she wiggled like a player of dulcimer. The winking thing slid between them, a freak of nature, a wonder for commonsfolk.

"Don't make a noise."

Addie grabbed a handful of dirt from the earth, divided it evenly into both her fists, and whispered gibberish into them. Then she threw the dirt on the faces of the two horrified, dogmatic guards. All the while, the coin stayed suspended mid-air.

"Now," Addie said sharply, with a glare in place of her smile, addressing them both. "If you let leak to a soul what happened here tonight - if you so much as think of telling another person or thing or ghost - I will find you. And I will make you pay dearly for every breath you have wasted by taking as yours and every grain of wheat you have consumed since your wet maids pulled you into the world. I swear this by every last fiber of blood and bone and mageic in me, and the rage outside, so don't play a gamble in taking me seriously. Savvy?"

The bastards gulped and nodded furiously.

As she heard some noise, Addie blew her Skill's candle and let the coin fall into her hand.

Out of nowhere the pale-haired woman rushed over to the guard with the broken arm, lying on the ground with his pathetic ling standing out. She hit him right where he deserved it, and the man began to howl louder still.

"Quit whining," Addie spat. "You're supposed to be a soldier."

As she and the woman passed the second guard, he secured his manhood behind gloved palms. Addie tapped his helm casually, marked where it had hit the bark. He recoiled like a kitten before water.

No. They would not speak. They would tell their superiors they had gotten into a fight, but they would not speak of her. At least not until they had reached Fehnia.

That was time enough for her. By then Master Harl would be smuggling her to Nerba, the northern kingdom.

Obviously the dirt had been a bluff. Skillers such as herself could only manipulate metal to do their bid, some such as argonz and steel and iron easier than others like gold, silver, nickel. She was no Aaserrdae.

The pale-haired woman laughed, then let tears wash her face. They looked like blood streams under the red moonlight. This was where Addie noticed the similarities.

"What's your name?"

"Nayari."

"Well, Nayari," said Addie, her fingernails burning. "I think I know where your daughter is."

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Anyhow, thanks for reading!